Okay, we are loving the Hal Roach Streamliner Comedies. Last night we saw the best Dodo Doubleday movie yet, "About Face"(1942), in which Roach makes a comedy duo out of the series' stars William Tracy and Joe Sawyer, whose characters - Dodo and Sgt. Ames, respectively - were enemies in the first two pictures. This time they pal up for a wild and crazy night on the town, and man is it nuts! Here's how it comes about: as the movie opens, Sgt. Ames is attempting to march a new class of recruits around the base, but Doubleday is in his office, barking out orders from a manual he's memorizing, which contains contrary information. He's practicing on his dog, who is following along, but Sgt. Ames' troops overhear Dodo's voice and immediately switch directions, turning right instead of left, halting when they're supposed to forward march and so on. This creates chaos, and they end up knocking a General on his rear end, hardy-har-har. Ames gets read the riot act by the General for mishandling his troops, and he's ready to take it out on Dodo, as usual, until Dodo tells him, with pride, "guess what Sgt. Ames? I just won another mail-in trivia contest. Can you believe it? They sent me a check for a hundred dollars." As Dodo displays the check, Ames' anger vanishes. Suddenly he's all smiles and couldn't be nicer.
See, the base has a weekend leave coming up, and Sgt. Ames is always broke. He owes money to half the other officers and no one will loan him a dime, so when he sees Dodo's check, Dodo is suddenly his best friend. Ames snows him into a day on the town, saying "we'll pool our dough!" But of course he has no money, the cost is all gonna be on Dodo. He agrees to the plan, happy that Ames wants to be his friend, but first, he says, he has a date. He's promised to attend a meeting with a women's club, headed up by a uniform-wearing do-gooder named "Mrs. Culpepper" (Margaret Dumont), who lectures well-bred young ladies on matters of morals and charity. Dodo was invited to the meeting by Mrs. Culpepper when she visited the base to drum up a donation from the Colonel. When Dodo tells Sgt. Ames that young women will be attending the meeting, Ames invites himself along, but first he suggests to Dodo a stop at a bar called The Grotto. While getting hammered, Ames meets a brassy dame named "Daisy" (Veda Ann Borg) and tells her to "order anything you want, I'm loaded". Of course, he doesn't have a cent but Dodo does, and after Dodo disappears to make a phone call to Mrs. Culpepper, explaining why he'll be late, Ames and Daisy get thrown out of the bar when they can't pay their tab. When Dodo returns, he finds the two gone. A skinny girl named "Sally" (Jean Porter), who's voice sounds like Minnie Mouse, is sitting in Daisy's place; she gloms onto Dodo over a lemonade and becomes fixated on him. Sally keeps turning up after that, wherever the boys go, including the women's club meeting. She's like a cartoon character, and to say that hijinx ensue is an understatement. This is the best Doubleday film yet, it's hilarious, with the kind of crack comic timing and role playing that would turn up on SNL years later. The ending features a free-for-all automobile destruction derby, in which cars are pulled apart by hand. The whole thing is crazy, and Jean Porter steals the show. "About Face" is absolutely not to be missed and gets Two Huge Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night's movie was another Streamliner called "Niagara Falls", featuring the dynamic duo from "Miss Polly", Zasu Pitts and Slim Summerville, who in the first scene is about to end it all, at "Suicide Point" beside The Falls, when he's rescued from despair by a peanut vendor, who calms him down and listens to his tale of woe, while the two of them munch bags and bags of goobers. For twenty years, Slim had been meaning to marry his sweetheart Zasu, and when they finally got around to it, and drove to Niagara Falls (which was Honeymoon Central in those days), they had the misfortune to get involved in the relationship of "Tom Wilson" and "Margie Blake" (Tom Brown and Marjorie Woodworth), a malcontent young couple who they passed on Devonshire Street.
Slim's story is told in flashback: while pulled over on Devonshire, for smooching while driving, Slim and Zasu see a man whack a woman in the butt with a stick. He thought she was a man, robbing his car, but she only wanted to borrow a pump to fix her flat tire. The man helps her and apologises, but she has a sore rear end that is good for "inner tube" seating jokes for the next ten minutes. It turns out that both of these young people are headed to Niagara Falls (by way of Devonshire in Northridge) but they have very different philosophies as to why they're going there. Margie Blake wants to find a mate, to get married and have children, but Tom Wilson just wants to get lucky and fool around. He doesn't believe in marriage, and as he spouts off, Margie is insulted and thinks he's a loser. Tom blows her off, saying "have a nice life with your 24 children, sister" and they go their separate ways in separate cars. But then they collide in the road and hate each other even more than before. Each ends up at the same hotel in Niagara Falls. Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts have already arrived, and another dispute arises over who will get the remaining bridal suite, because the joint is sold out. Slim offers it to Tom and Margie, in the hope they will reconcile their differences. He's seen them fighting in the lobby and assumes they're married, and because it took 20 years for him and Zasu to tie the knot, he wants to ensure harmony for the young folks so they'll live happily ever after. But when confusion results from the booking change, and Tom and Margie end up in separate rooms (which is what they want anyway), Slim gets upset and comes after them with a gun. He's gonna force them to get to get along, even if he has to hold them hostage to do it. "Get back in that room, the two of you!" They think he's gone stark raving nuts, but they kiss in front of him just to get him off their case. Meanwhile, Zasu is doing her ditzy love-struck thing in their own room, waiting for Slim to come back, but he ain't coming back till Tom and Margie agree to get married.
I'd be interested to know what they were smoking when they made this. At one point, Slim chases Tom Wilson out onto a high balcony at the hotel, still pointing his gun and threatening to shoot him if he doesn't get back inside with Margie. But Tom so detests her (in Screwball fashion, meaning friction equals romance) that he's willing to walk the tightrope of the balcony ledge, with only inches to spare him from a five story fall, rather than climb back in the room and face more bickering. The moral of the story, as Slim tells the peanut vendor, is "never get involved in anyone's business, especially when the business is marriage." That's why he ended up at Suicide Point, though the peanut man keeps him from jumping. "Niagara Falls" is truly nutty, and in that vein, Slim Summerville is slightly reminiscent of Randy Quaid, before he became certifiable. Zasu Pitts doesn't have much to do this time, but Marjorie Woodworth and Tom Brown are great as the squabbling couple who get more than they bargained for when Slim bangs on their door. "Niagara Falls" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. I'm tellin' ya, these Hal Roach flicks are a riot, and very original in style and content. Watch "About Face" and "Niagara Falls" as a double feature. You'll be done in less than two hours and you won't know what hit your funny bone. The picture is sharp here as well. ////
That's all for tonight. I have an update on "Get Back", though you've almost certainly seen it and don't need my input, but I reported that John Lennon looked bored during Part One of the documentary, and for anyone who hasn't seen it, I should amend that so as not to give a false impression. While he does indeed look disinterested for the first two hours (filmed over a week's time), he perks up considerably after the George Harrison debacle in which George quits the band after feeling that Paul harassed or was condescending to him during rehearsals. All this stuff is well-known in Beatle lore, but after George quit, they had a meeting to get him back in the band, and after the meeting John and Paul have their own tete-a-tete (which was surreptitiously recorded by the filmmakers), and after John tells Paul that he, too, sometimes feels intimidated by Paul's leadership methods ("Play it this way, lads! No, no, like this!"), the air between them clears and the tension falls away. In Part Two John seems to be having a blast and clowns around a lot. That's one thing about Peter Jackson's 8 hour cut; there's so much clowning that he probably could have cut it down a bit. Still, it's a great watch. But to paraphrase Harvey Korman, "why am I telling you?" You've already seen it.
My blogging music is Steve Hillage "Green". Really you could listen to Steve and National Health and never listen to anything else, at least for a month. Late night is still "Rienzi" by Wagner. I hope you're enjoying your weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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